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PML-N’s Syed Iqbal Shah celebrating his victory in the NA-154 by-election in Lodhran on Tuesday.—Dawn

ISLAMABAD: Dejected over the “unexpected defeat” at the hands of a political minnow, many in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) believe that the people of Lodhran have shattered the myth that money and electables are a must to win elections.

Asked to analyse the causes for the party’s defeat in the Lodhran by-election, a number of PTI leaders and office-bearers say that it was perhaps because of the fact that the party had left the entire scheme of things — from selection of the candidate to running of the campaign — to former secretary general Jahangir Tareen believing that he had enough financial resources to win the seat for his son.

Moreover, the PTI leaders admit that they were “over-confident” about the outcome of the by-election because of two reasons — the huge victory margin of around 40,000 votes in the previous election that had been won by Jahangir Tareen and the nomination of an “unelectable and unfamiliar” candidate by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N.

In a surprising turn of events, PML-N candidate Syed Iqbal Shah on Monday won the NA-154 by-election in Lodhran with a sizeable margin of some 25,000 votes against his strong rival Ali Tareen, the son of Jahangir Tareen. According to the unofficial results announced by the Election Commission of Pakistan, Iqbal Shah secured 113,827 votes against some 91,000 votes obtained by Ali Tareen.

The National Assembly seat had fallen vacant after Jahangir Tareen was disqualified for being “dishonest” by the Supreme Court in December last year.

“We had won the seat previously by a margin of over 40,000 votes and now we have lost it by 25,000 votes. This turnaround of about 65,000 votes is a matter of serious concern for the party,” said a senior leader of the PTI.

Talking to Dawn on condition of anonymity, he said that the Lodhran by-poll should be an eye-opener for the party leadership which mostly kept financial background in mind at the time of awarding party tickets.

“Money is not everything. You need to be with the people of the constituency instead of carrying out aerial visits,” he said while taunting Mr Tareen for frequently using a helicopter during his visits to the constituency and the election campaign.

Even on election day, he said, Mr Tareen had come to a polling station on his helicopter to cast his vote and this action would not have been appreciated by the voters standing in queues at polling stations.

Another PTI leader said that the sugarcane price factor had also played a major role in the party’s defeat as there had been resentment among the growers because of the refusal of the sugar mill owners to pay them good price for their crop. Since Mr Tareen was also known as one of the richest sugar mill owners, the area people might have shown their anger over this policy, he added. The PTI leader admitted that the party leadership had not followed the normal procedure of selecting and nominating the candidate through a parliamentary board and alleged that the decision to nominate Ali Tareen as the party candidate had been made by the top party brass without proper consultations.

On the other hand, PTI’s newly-appointed information secretary Fawad Chaudhry claimed that Ali Tareen had been nominated as the party candidate after thorough consultations and keeping in view the local political dynamics, adding that the party still believed that Ali Tareen was the best choice as the party candidate.

Terming the outcome of the by-poll an “upset”, he said that the results were not in accordance with their expectations.

Asked about the reasons for the party’s defeat, he said that actually the result had come “as per trend and not as per expectation”, explaining that the PTI normally won by-elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PPP in Sindh and the PML-N in Punjab. He said the PTI would definitely analyse the results and try to remove its weaknesses.

Meanwhile, it is believed that the PML-N’s strategy to make its elected parliamentarians, ticket aspirants for coming general elections and local government representatives work for the success of its candidate in NA-154 by-poll had also paid off.

According to Lodhran PML-N president Tahir Ameer Ghauri, the party’s strategy to field Mr Shah instead of Siddique Baloch had also worked in the by-election. Siddique Baloch had won the seat as an independent candidate in 2013 but lost the 2015 by-election against Jahangir Tareen as a PML-N nominee.

Mr Ghauri said that all PML-N MPAs, chairmen of union councils and even the councillors worked hard for the success of the party candidate. He said that Mr Baloch was a disputed candidate who even tried to ditch the party by withdrawing from the contest when the date for submitting nomination papers was over.

He said that Pir Rafiuddin Shah, who was angry and even had refused to talk to Hamza Shahbaz, declared support to the PML-N candidate after Shahbaz Sharif talked to him on phone and assured him of the party ticket for PP-211 in the forthcoming general election.

A local PTI leader, Malik Riaz Arain, alleged that the government, which already had launched a number of development projects in the district, had held out assurances to public representatives of the area of more funds for the welfare projects. He admitted that the pre-election assessment given by various supporters of Ali Tareen had proved wrong. “The defeat provides us an opportunity to rectify our mistake which we made in the by-election,” he said.

Comments (23) Closed

This is called democracy folks. Better candidate with good services to people won.

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WM

Feb 14, 2018 09:16am

Be prepare for unexpected in KPK in 2018 election.

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Rahshid KHAN

Feb 14, 2018 09:25am

PTI had five years to regroup and restructure their party, and come stronger for the 2018 elections. I feel that the party was more popular among the voters in 2013 than it is right now.

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Rizwan

Feb 14, 2018 09:35am

One of the best example of democracy.

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anees zed

Feb 14, 2018 09:54am

This has nothing to do with PML-N and its 'popularity'. Their candidate got votes on the bases of his spiritual following.

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Amin U Ansari

Feb 14, 2018 10:16am

Its good that the election was fair. PTI will learn from Lodhran defeat and will be back stronger.

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Adnan Mazher Khan

Feb 14, 2018 10:22am

I am voter of PTI but I want to warn Imran that few of his decisions have gone utterly wrong and caused damaged to the party. The foremost is inducting 'Lotas' in his party. Be prepared for further losses Khan Sahib.

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Ahmed bin Babar

Feb 14, 2018 10:25am

This is after effect of PTI's getting closer to the JUI (S)...

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SALMAN ALI

Feb 14, 2018 10:30am

Imran Khan has mentioned about learning from mistakes. One mistake in my opinion was focusing on Dharnaas and Protests instead of strengthening the party structure. PML-N has proven time and again that it knows how to win Constituency based Elections. PTI on the other hand, believes that TV Airtime will win elections.

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Ehtasham-ul-Hassan

Feb 14, 2018 12:46pm

I disagree with the widely held view that the win of PML-N's candidate, in Lodhran by-elections, is an political upset. the retrospective analysis shows that this win is not at all against the ground realities and local facts.
The reason, this result came out as surprise, is that this by-election was totally overlooked by media and political pundits alike....
Pir Iqbal shah, the winner from PML-N, is a well established social and political figure there.

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Dr. Nabil

Feb 14, 2018 02:02pm

This is not democracy; the two parties did not have equal playing fields, one had all the resources of the Punjab province, and the other was just a contestant; the result was too obvious!

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Mushahid

Feb 14, 2018 02:04pm

A message for IK: pick the right people!

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Optimist

Feb 14, 2018 02:45pm

Very unfortunate that huge money was spent on lodhran election from both parties. The good thing is that PTI even after spending more money lost the election. PTI should come out from Banigala drawing room politics and produce genuine political workers and leaders instead of relying on IK charisma which has start showing downward trend. Unfortunately IK instead of promoting genuine youth leadership is relying on old seasoned politician to bring PTI to power without considering the fact that these seasoned politicians are in politics since 30-40 years without bringing any positive change to the society. To bring real long term change in the country , our honest and competent youth has to play the leadership role & the any party who can attract youths and give them the proper forum will only change the future of Pakistan which cannot be achieved through corrupt seasoned politicians.

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Asimliaquuiat

Feb 14, 2018 03:05pm

Good indicator of the elections to come, even though I’m not a PML N supporter I feel like Imran Khan has lost his vision due to a lot f bad advice and decisions and also bringing out faces which are counter productive, I think in next election PMl will do even better than last election and PTI will hardly be able to get 20 seats at most in the NA, KPK will also be tough to keep as ANo and PML will go in strong and give them a tougher fight, khan Saab had a chance in 2013 but no chance this year

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shoaib

Feb 14, 2018 03:08pm

General elections will prove tough for PTI.

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Sanaullah

Feb 14, 2018 06:29pm

Sad for PTI, But please Focus , it is not time to be worried , come stronger, Mafia is stronger but you should be even more...

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Rehan

Feb 14, 2018 07:21pm

@Rahshid KHAN .. I agree. Now they have 5 months to regroup and come stronger. I hope they follow the party's slogan of justice by actually doing justice when selecting candidates within its own party. They need to get out of the mindset of electables and go at the grass root level to woo the voters. 5 month to regroup is challenging but doable with sincere and hard-working work force on the field.

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Tariq Amir

Feb 14, 2018 09:43pm

Lodhrahn 154, is just a trailer. Khan sahib the full movie will be released in July, 2018.

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Sameer

Feb 14, 2018 10:17pm

@Shan the better candidate seems to have never seen daylight let alone serve!

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Nasr

Feb 14, 2018 10:45pm

PTI is done. If they cannot win by-elections then forget about the general elections. Imran opposes politics of inheritance but made way for Ali Tareen a rooky

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Hassan Nazeer

Feb 15, 2018 02:45am

I talked to political experts in Lodran. PTI had leading position in the city, the major thing which turned people around is Sugar Cane. There are lot of poor people in Lodhran and their home runs on sale of Sugar Cane , and people this time were annoyed with Tareen for not buying their Sugar Cane that even many PTI supporters who voted for Tareen last time have voted for PML N.

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Zia

Feb 15, 2018 06:21am

This had nothing to do with PMLN. It was a vote against PTI and vote for this person. PMLN infact ditch the guy and left it on its own as PTI left Yasmin Rashid as they believed they could never win it. This person connected with the people and stood against wealth of Jahangir Tareen. A good thing for PTI is that now the big wigs will not blackmail them and they will have an example to show to ones who try.
I still hope PTI wins general elections. They may be the best option even though a gamble but trillion times better than known corrupts PMLN and PP.

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Neo

Feb 15, 2018 08:09pm

@Optimist. They did what you are suggesting years ago. Didn't work. They hardly got any votes.